Category Archives: Headlines

Perry Link:China After Tiananmen: Money, Yes; Ideas, No

Posted on 05/14/2014 by | Perry Link:China After Tiananmen: Money, Yes; Ideas, No已关闭评论

Perry Link:China After Tiananmen: Money, Yes; Ideas, No
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David Turnley/Corbis
Soldiers and demonstrators at Tiananmen Square, May, 1989

The June Fourth Massacre in Beijing has had remarkable longevity. What happened in and around Tiananmen Square twenty-five years ago this June not only haunts the memories of people who witnessed the events and of friends and families of the victims, but also persists in the minds of people who stood, and still stand, with the attacking side. Deng Xiaoping, the man who said “go” for the final assault on thousands of Chinese citizens protesting peacefully for democracy, has died. But people who today are inside or allied with the political regime responsible for the killing remain acutely aware of it.

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Perry Link:China After Tiananmen: Money, Yes; Ideas, No已关闭评论

Posted in Book Reviews, Headlines, June 4th Commemoration, News & Events

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Ma Jian:The Dark Road from China

Posted on 05/14/2014 by | Ma Jian:The Dark Road from China已关闭评论

Ma Jian:The Dark Road from China

Amy Hawkins talks to the Chinese writer and exiled dissident about China’s one child policy, and how he still hopes to go home

by Amy Hawkins   

Thursday 30th January 2014, 18:05 GMT
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MA JIAN

Ma Jian has not been allowed to return to China since 2011
“I write for the weak and vulnerable, those who have no voice in China,” says Ma Jian, speaking through an interpreter. This is what drives him to write. Considering that his work has been banned in China for the last 25 years, and he
himself has been banned for nearly three, it would seem safe to say that he is the one who has been silenced. However, he does not see it this way. Although an unpopular figure with the Chinese Communist Party, he continues to write prolifically, having recently published his sixth novel, The Dark Road.

“Government is temporary, literature is forever,” he tells me, drawing an analogy between his works and the historically banned Soviet literature that is now freely available to Russian citizens. One day, he hopes, his words will reach those who inspired them.

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CHINA: Veteran journalist Gao Yu (f) charged with ‘leaking state secrets abroad’; fears for safety.

Posted on 05/14/2014 by | 1 comment

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RAPID ACTION NETWORK

9 May 2014

RAN 09/14

CHINA: Veteran journalist Gao Yu (f) charged with ‘leaking state secrets abroad’; fears for safety.

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Veteran journalist Gao Yu went missing on 24 April 2014 and there was no information concerning her fate until 8 May 2014 when the official Chinese news agency Xinhua confirmed that Gao Yu is being detained by Beijing police on the charge of ‘leaking state secrets abroad’. She is accused of leaking a secret document to editors of a foreign website in August 2013. Footage of her ‘confessing’, feared to have been taken under duress, was shown on state television. Her whereabouts remain unknown, and there are serious concerns for her well-being and integrity.

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Posted in Headlines, News & Events, RAN About Chinese, Rapid Action Network, Writers in Prison

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CHINA: Publisher Yao Wentian (aka Yiu Mantin) sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Posted on 05/14/2014 by | CHINA: Publisher Yao Wentian (aka Yiu Mantin) sentenced to 10 years in prison.已关闭评论

CHINA: Publisher Yao Wentian (aka Yiu Mantin) sentenced to 10 years in prison.


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RAPID ACTION NETWORK
12 May 2014

Update #1 to RAN 02/14

CHINA: Publisher Yao Wentian (aka Yiu Mantin) sentenced to 10 years in prison.

PEN International is shocked by the heavy sentencing of Hong-based publisher Yao Wentian on 7 May 2014. Yao, who has been held in Shenzhen since 27 October 2013, was convicted by the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court on the charge of ‘smuggling prohibited items’ and sentenced to a 10-year jail term. At the time of his arrest he was preparing to publish a book by US-based yao_wentian_detained_sondissident writer Yu Jie, entitled Chinese Godfather Xi Jinping. PEN believes the trial and conviction to bepolitically motivated. Yao suffers from asthma and a heart complaint and there are serious concerns for his health.
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CHINA: Publisher Yao Wentian (aka Yiu Mantin) sentenced to 10 years in prison.已关闭评论

Posted in Headlines, News & Events, RAN About Chinese, Rapid Action Network, Writers in Prison

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ICPC Statement on the Detention of Its Member Li Jianhong for Returning to China

Posted on 02/13/2014 by | ICPC Statement on the Detention of Its Member Li Jianhong for Returning to China已关闭评论

For Press Release

Li JianhongThe Independent Chinese PEN Center (ICPC) is outraged to learn that its member Miss Li Jianhong (aka Xiao Qiao) was taken into custody by the police from her home in Shanghai, China, in the afternoon of 12 February 2014, since when she has been held incommunicado in an unknown location. ICPC fears that Miss Li has been unjustly detained and mistreated for her returning to China as well as for her words and deeds abroad, and therefore strongly demands the Chinese authorities to restore her personal freedom, and ensure all of her legal rights. Continue reading →

ICPC Statement on the Detention of Its Member Li Jianhong for Returning to China已关闭评论

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ICPC Statement on Criminal Detention of Uyghur PEN Member Ilham Tohti

Posted on 01/30/2014 by | ICPC Statement on Criminal Detention of Uyghur PEN Member Ilham Tohti已关闭评论

(January 30th, 2014)

Ilham TohtiIndependent Chinese PEN Center is seriously concerned about the reports of criminal detention of Ilham Tohti, a member of Uyghur PEN and associate professor of economics at the Central University for Nationalities in Beijing, and fears that he has been retaliated for his criticizing remarks. ICPC calls on the government to restitute as soon as possible his personal freedom, freedom of expression and other basic rights, and release all of those imprisoned for their words, including ICPC former and honorary president Dr. Liu Xiaobo. Continue reading →

ICPC Statement on Criminal Detention of Uyghur PEN Member Ilham Tohti已关闭评论

Posted in Documents, Headlines, ICPC News, Writers in Prison

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ICPC Statement to Protest against the Sentence of Its Honorable Member Xu Zhiyong

Posted on 01/26/2014 by | ICPC Statement to Protest against the Sentence of Its Honorable Member Xu Zhiyong已关闭评论

(26 January 2014)

Xu ZhiyongIndependent Chinese PEN Center (ICPC) protests in the strongest terms against sentencing Mr. Xu Zhiyong, its honorable member and Lin Zhao Memorial Award Laureate for 2013, and the initiator of New Citizens’ Movement, to four years imprisonment for “gathering crowds to disrupt public order” announced today by the First People’s Intermediate Court of Beijing. ICPC believes that this verdict, based solely on accounting six small-scale New Citizens’ Movement’s street demonstration and protest activities as being organized, planned and incited by Xu Zhiyong, has completely violated the basic human rights to the freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration, guaranteed to citizens by Article 35 of China’s Constitution and by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which China signed in 1998, and is simply another serious political and judicial persecution in reality. ICPC therefore calls on organizations in China and abroad to urge the Chinese authorities to rectify as soon as possible this miscarriage of justice, and release immediately and unconditionally Mr. Xu Zhiyong and all of those imprisoned for peaceful exercises of their civil rights. Continue reading →

ICPC Statement to Protest against the Sentence of Its Honorable Member Xu Zhiyong已关闭评论

Posted in Documents, Headlines, ICPC News, Writers in Prison

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ICPC Statement for International Human Rights Day

Posted on 12/08/2012 by | ICPC Statement for International Human Rights Day已关闭评论

For Press Release
8 December 2012

Today is the fourth detention anniversary of Dr. Liu Xiaobo, the former and honorary president of Independent Chinese PEN Centre (ICPC), and two days later it will be the second anniversary of awarding him the Nobel Peace Prize. Gazed by the whole world, the CCP’s 18th Congress held in Beijing last month has not resulted in any goodwill toward freedom but launched a new series of crackdown since prior to the Congress to repress freedom of expression and violate basic human rights of Chinese people. Not only Liu Xiaobo and other prisoners of conscience have been still in jail, and Liu Xiaobo’s wife Liu Xia, a poet and founding member of ICPC, has been still under house arrest since more the two years ago, but also a young activist Cao Haibo who initiated an online organization Zhenhua Club has been sentenced to 8-year imprisonment in Yunnan Province as well as a dissident writer Li Bifeng has been sentenced to 12-year imprisonment in Sichuan Province, respectively. In recent two months, there have been many forced disappearances, forced travels and illegal house arrest of many dissidents and activists including ICPC members for political “stability”. ICPC expresses its strong protest against these acts of Chinese authorities, and calls on the Chinese authorities to end their persecutions and respect citizens’ basic human rights including freedom of expression guaranteed by the Chinese Constitution and the International Human Rights Conventions, and to release Liu Xiaobo, Liu Xia and all of others under unjustl imprisonments and house arrest immediately and unconditionally. Continue reading →

ICPC Statement for International Human Rights Day已关闭评论

Posted in Documents, Headlines, ICPC News, Support Liu Xiaobo, Writers in Prison

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